Now, you might think if a company was looking for fossil fuel, they would employ a person who knew what was under the ground before any drilling took place.  Little things like, how far down the earth’s crust might be, for example.   Someone with the qualifications to ‘dig about a bit’, and charge the going rate for such a job.  I mean, you wouldn’t hire a plank to cut a few corners just save the company a few bob, now would you?

In 2006 geologist B was hired by a firm to have a ‘shufty about’, and to be fair, he was up against from day one.  For a start the gas company picked Indonesia, the most volcanic country in the world, for the exploratory bore holes to be drilled.  Now, even as a layman, I would’ve thought that this was a very, very silly place to start rooting around with a bunch pipes and a drill head.  Watford, on the other hand, would’ve been a much safer bet I feel.   I realise, of course, that everyone has a bad day now and again, but here’s how things go when a geologist has an off day.

After a lock-in at the ‘Slapper’s Rest’, the arse with the theodolite and ground samples, took his findings to the drilling crew and said, “I.. luv ya… yor like faaaaaamily to me, aim the drill malarkey about… there son, no probs.”  So they did.  All was ‘cool’ until they reached the 3,000 ft mark, or 0.568.181 of a mile to you and me.   Well, bloody well, as you might imagine, little or nothing happened almost  immediately straight away, so they downed tools, and went for a tea break at Burt’s House of Lard.

Before they left the site, they withdrew the drill, and a short time later the pressure dropped in the well.  The knock-on effect caused a whole heap of water to be sucked in, and then the rocks surrounding the bore hole began to fracture.   What was cold H2O,  from the surrounding water table, had now been super-heated by a lava flow from below.  Buckets and buckets of steamy stuff then mixed with layers of mud stone, and then the whole bloody lot shot to the surface.  The locals weren’t best pleased.  One member of the town began writing a letter of complaint immediately, but sadly he couldn’t finish it, as all of his office equipment and his house were buried in mud up to the roof!

This man made eruption is still erupting, four years after the event,  and it’s all thanks to the pillock who got his sums wrong.   At the moment it’s spewing out enough mud to fill 40 Olympic sized swimming pools a day!  They tried lobbing concrete block at the problem but it was to little to late.  After managing to displace 30,000 people, and bury 10,000 home under a sea of mud, geologist B is currently working as a shelf-stacker in Lidl’s.

Right, I’m off.  I’ve got free tickets to see a new martial arts film called, Crouching Mongoose – Farting Hippo…

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 20th, 2010 at 3:37 am and is filed under Neils Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.